This is the second time that, when sometimes meaningful happens in Malaysia, we are not in the country. On April 28th, the rallies of BERSIH 3.0 have once again demonstrated that the country has still a long way to go in terms of democracy.

Without adding another personal opinion to the same, huge cauldron of press which has been published all over the internet in the past three days, I just want to let others know that, as one full Malaysian and a “resident” abroad, we could not just forget BERSIH 3.0 was happening a few thousands kilometers East of our current geographical position.

We decided to prepare a yellow banner and put up a parade in the streets of Yuksom, West Sikkim, Northeast India. That strip of land nested among Nepal to the West and Bhutan to the East had to witness at least two people defending some good ol’ Malaysian pride. So, here we go: we set off in the morning, banner in hand and with a resolution to tell someone about what is happening in Malaysia at the moment. At first, Yuksom, a village set at the beginning of the trek north towards Dzongri and the Goeche La pass, did not seem very reactive.

We took some pictures in front of the local gompas and monasteries, surrounded by a couple passer-by horses, but we were not satisfied. We found our niche only looking around the lake: a group of workers, busy collecting and breaking pieces of granite. Kit started slowly explaining what BERSIH 3.0 is and one of them, the most fluent English speaker, decided happily to pose next to us. The result is the picture you can see in this post.

Call us silly or stupid, tell us that we should have been in Kuala Lumpur or Penang protesting with the thousand others… you can think or say anything you want, but the reality is that, at least, we have tried our best to raise some awareness in a particularly remote and beautiful part of the world. Did you also do your part? Ok, great.